Unfortunately for the Government’s case that it is a global leader, six months have passed, and no other nation has followed our leadership.

Almost every other nation that has exploration potential is ignoring the Prime Minister’s example and getting on with exploring and producing more fossil fuels, and particularly natural gas. On the demand-side, more gas pipelines and liquified natural gas (or LNG) handling ports are being built in both the developed world and in developing counties as nations decide to use less coal and more gas as part of climate change adaption and their economic development.

Egypt is developing it’s ‘monumental’ Zohr Field off its North coast, spending billions on developing the 850 billion cubic meters of natural gas in place.

Closer to home, Australia is gaining even more economic advantages based on using gas for industry and LNG exports out of West Australia and Queensland. Labor governments in Queensland and Victoria are enthusiastically granting exploration permits.

What about France, the second nation to ban (following Costa Rica’s ban) offshore oil and gas exploration, and New Zealand following France’s example?

The two nations trying to show the world their climate change leadership start from very different places. France runs 58 nuclear power plants generating 403 TWh or 72% of electricity. More critically, France can import Norwegian and Russian gas over a sophisticated and well-developed network of natural gas pipelines. In contrast, New Zealand is isolated from every other nations’ gas or electricity network. Nuclear is a non-starter here.

The reality is that no nation is following our climate leadership more than six months after the PM announced her policy.